


The Adventures of Bell the Ferret

by gardnerhill



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Animals, Birthday Presents, Drabble Collection, Ferrets, Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2008-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-16 15:43:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A compilation of my birthday storylets for LJ LOTR fan <b>belleferret</b> - featuring a heroic little ferret named Bell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Legends, Lies and Ferrets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Belleferret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belleferret/gifts).



Stories bout the Ringbearers is mostly lies, or they'd been seven years on the Quest and not a half-year. "The Bell Ferret," that there's pure legend. But the truth's bigger'n the lie, if you follow.

Sauron never set a slavering pack of black rats after Blessed Frodo in Mordor. Nor did one lone ferret rise from the earth to defend the sleeping Ringbearers and slaughter the whole squeaking horde. No truth to a grateful Samwise naming her and her descendents Bell after his mother.

Fiction.

Don't keep bell ferrets from bein' the best mousers in the Shire, though, do it?


	2. Bell

Goodness. Such a very nice hidey-hole! The two big-ferrets who lived there were worth following, she thought.

So she did – all the way from the warm sun and the mouse-ridden grass, through nasty dark woods, bitter snows, a proud ancient forest, wet rocks, smelly marsh, terrible stinking high cliffs, barren hungry stones.

When a horde of shrunk-bellied rats crept close with their yellow eyes and foaming teeth, she squealed her war cry and attacked.

The tawny-coated big-ferret kissed her wounds and said her new name. The sable-furred one smiled, and it was like a sunny day in his hidey-hole.


	3. Bell Wether

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bell the Ferret, [first written about here](http://gardnerhill.livejournal.com/30465.html#cutid1) and [ also here](http://gardnerhill.livejournal.com/56938.html), has a plan.

Her part in the story was done. She had followed the two big-ferrets across the bare stony land, and had slaughtered the horde of foul rats that had beset them while they slept – but at a cost. Her wounds were too great for anything but for her to remain and rest. Grooming her gashed shoulder, she thought grimly that she at least had plenty to eat, until the dead rats were all gone.

The big-ferrets continued on their way, after their too-brief rest and with barely a bite and a sup. Sorrowfully, she watched them travel ever further from the sun and the grass and their lovely perfect hidey-hole, so far away.

She knew, somehow, that why they did this was because of the shiny thing the dark-haired one carried. For one moment, when he'd been close, she had had the very strangest urge to nip it off his neck-chain and carry it herself, killing every rat that dared show its sneaking whiskered face and not stopping until she had dug the biggest and most beautiful hole in the land, and all others of her kind fought to be her mate. But now he was gone away, with his tawny-haired playmate, and with the strange lovely terrible shiny thing, and she was quite herself again.

She made up her mind. As soon as she was well enough, she would go home, back to the big-ferrets' hidey-hole. She would make her own burrow there. She would find a suitable mate; one that loved and cared for her as these two big-ferrets loved and cared for each other, and as fearless and stubborn as herself. They and their pups would devour or kill every rodent and snake around them.

They would keep that perfect hidey-hole snug and safe, until the big-ferrets' return.


	4. The Purging of the Rats

When Bell came back a horrid smell, noise and mess told the story.

Rats! Her fur bristled. Rats, in the big-ferret’s beautiful hidey-hole! (Oh, they _looked_ like Men, but their destruction and foul behavior told the truth.)

The Rats were too big to kill – and she did not want to kill. But drive them out she would, with help.

The local foxes, badgers, and crows loathed the Rats too, and all fought – stolen crops, ruined clothes, undermined roads, bitten ankles and pecked eyes. The weakened Men fell to the big-ferrets’ swords.

And Captain Bell took up residence, her duty done.


	5. Bell Warden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dark-haired one isn’t gone; he’s in the very soil they dig.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another birthday tale of Bell the Ferret for LJ user .

Bell had been glad to help give the two big-ferrets their beautiful hidey-hole back. She’d chittered with joy the day the tawny-furred one brought home his mate.

 

But the beautiful dark-furred big-ferret had been too badly wounded, and not long afterward he disappeared. She knew what had happened; like many too hurt to live, he’d gone off to die by himself, and let the worms and beetles help turn him back into good digging-earth.

 

Heart aching, Bell nursed her kits. And she told them all the story, and her part in it – about the two magnificent big-ferrets that she’d followed into that grassless, sunless land, and her battle against the foul squad of rats to save the pair of them; how the big-ferrets had blessed her, and named her. And she sadly told them about the ill dark-furred one, who was now part of this very soil that made their home.

 

So even as the tawny-furred big-ferret took care of the hidey-hole, him and his mate and their many frisky slow-growing kits, Bell’s ferrets were born and grew up and went out with that tale in their hearts, fierce and ready to strike terror into the rats and mice of their homeland. She lived a good, long life – more than ten years.

 

When age and illness finally took her, Bell groped her blind way alone to the top of the hidey-hole. She lay down, feeling the Sun bathe her old scars. It felt just like the dark-furred one kissing her.


	6. Year of Plenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s not just the hobbits who celebrate the year 1420.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A birthday present for belleferret. Also a wee bit of a shout-out to Father’s Day, observed today in the United States and the UK.

Thirteen beautiful kits for her first litter! And not one born dead, and none small and sickly at birth, to be sadly pushed aside and left until the beetles took it away. No – thirteen blind pink creatures like thick hairy worms, but wriggling with life every one. 

Bell’s mate hunted the fattest rats and squirrels for Bell so that she could turn them into milk for the babies, because nursing them all in shifts soon occupied her wholly. Fortunately the rats and mice and squirrels were fat and plentiful this year, and he fed his mate well. She in turn fed the thirteen kits, and their chuckles soon filled the hidey-hole; the Sun sent her warmth down to bless them as they grew. 

While Bell fed her kits, she told them about the big hidey-hole, and the big-ferrets that lived there; how she had followed them into foul dark lands with no good digging soil and only small bitter worms for food; how she had fought a pack of wicked rats and killed them all while the big-ferrets slept in exhaustion, and been wounded; how she had gone home once she was well again. How she had found their father here, and together they had fought off yet another swarm of rats – two-legged ones, driven off by all the ferrets, big and small. And how she and their father had chuckled for joy when the big-ferrets cleaned their splendid hidey-hole and lived in it once again. 

The kits were lively as their father, as fierce as their mother. When they were old enough to hunt their own prey, they started at the big hidey-hole, growing fat on the mice that would have damaged the big-ferrets’ home. Bell chuckled with pride and nuzzled her handsome mate; her children had learned well.


End file.
